


Old School Horror

by AlulaSpeaks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Torture, Non-Graphic Violence, Season/Series 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlulaSpeaks/pseuds/AlulaSpeaks
Summary: The blowtorch was a nice touch, but Sam is tired of pretending that pain scares him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my very first fandom offerings, though admiring fan works has been a part of my life for a long time. THis was written as part of my 12 day countdown to Season 12. All feedback is appreciated.

Sam hisses a breath in through his teeth and pushes back the pain, forces himself to keep his strained breathing measured. The taste of burning hair and muscle fills the back of his throat as he breathes through his mouth. He doesn’t count his breaths, doesn’t try to keep a hold of time. He lost that habit under Lucifer’s hands. It didn’t pay to measure the infinite. And Lucifer’s tortures were limitless in both nature and time. Being alive and beaten, cut, and burned is a different experience but it is exhausting in its familiarity. Just being alive is a beast of its own, knowing what he knows. Because Dean isn’t coming this time.

Lady Toni Bevell snaps her notebook closed, done with the pretense of taking notes. She leans back in her chair, crosses her legs at the ankle.

“I don’t appreciate being ignored, Sam,” she says and flicks her wrist and the woman with the blowtorch moves back into Sam’s view. He has to admit that the blowtorch is a nice touch. He’ll give them a few points for the anticipatory terror of that one.

Style points won’t change the fact that there is nothing they can do to him that is worse than what was done to him in the cage. Nothing they can tell him about his failures that he doesn’t already know. And there is nothing, nothing worse than the one thought that circles through his head over and over, with the same endless determination as the fly circling his bloodied face. Dean is dead and gone and obliterated.

Still, pain is pain and Sam roars through his as flames sear into the flesh of his outer thigh. Toni’s attack dog has incredibly steady hands. She holds it there long enough that Sam’s consciousness fuzzes gray around the edges.

Sam is brought back to vivid awareness by a bucket of tepid water dumped over his head. His body is shuddering through waves of pain and sudden chills.

“Answer my questions, Sam,” Toni says in her perfect, unaffected voice, “and we can be done with this whole ugly business.”

Dean is dead; everything is already ugly.

“You know,” Sam says, turning his head to address his torturer, deliberate in his dismissal of Toni, “you probably shouldn’t hold the torch in one place for so long.” Sam coughs, has to stop talking for a second because can’t speak through the gasping shiver that travels through his shocky system.

“It makes the wound too deep. It’ll get infected faster, plus there are plenty of nerve endings in the skin no need to go overboard. Better yet, you should look into freezing. Liquid nitrogen or something. Hurts just as bad, hell, maybe worse. But it doesn’t leave the same kind of open wound behind.”

Toni leans forward, chair creaking beneath her “And what exactly would you know about it?” she asks with the first note of curiosity Sam’s heard in her voice.

“The cage had its fair share of hellfire, but the Devil burns cold.” Sam strains against his bonds, leans as far into Toni’s space as he can. “I’ll let you guess for yourself which one’s worse.”

Toni clenches her jaw. She stands and walks over to the cart across the room. Spread over the top are tools that Sam recognizes immediately for their potential for pain. Toni runs her fingers delicately over scalpels and sheers, pliers and nails, pauses over the saw.

“It’s a mistake to underestimate our skill in the craft of pain,” Toni says, “or the capacity of the human body to feel it. You may think you’ve experienced the height of what you can feel, but I’ve been reliably informed that pain in hell is different than pain on earth. Should we test that theory?”

“Go ahead,” Sam sneers, can’t help it. He’s so damn tired of playing games. He wants this over already. Maybe Billie is already in the room, waiting. "I was in the cage with a couple of pissed off archangels for two centuries. Do you know what a human soul is to an archangel? It’s a paper doll. I was just a toy that made pretty noises if you hurt it the right way.”

Sam tilts his head, makes sure to look Toni straight in the eye. “I’ve been torn apart and put back together a billion times. Have you ever tried to hold your own guts in, when your hands have been cut away? Because I have. So, do I think you can make me bleed, make me scream. Yeah, I know you can. But can you hurt me enough to get what you want?” Sam shrugs. “You’ll be lucky if you make my greatest hits reel. But, hey, I get it; you’ve got a point to prove. Fine, prove it. But I’m done talking, so let’s move this along.” Sam settles back in his chair, rolls his shoulders, and cracks his neck.

“I recommend the pliers,” he says, doing his best to channel Dean’s most shit-eating grin, “go for the old school horror.”

**Author's Note:**

> Connect with me on [tumblr](http://alulaspeaks.tumblr.com/)! I'm as new there as I am here.


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